The Small Town Kid is in new stores.
I mentioned a few days back in my daily blog that I have started working through my back catalogue in order to place them in a format that allows me to list them more ‘widely’ than just Kindle in digital format, Starting with the Small Town Kid collection.
What a job! It has taken a while to remember all that I had forgotten and to recreate the muscle memory needed to establish a routine of preparation and checking and testing, before uploading. Not a super-big set of tasks, but still a challenge to get right.
Regardless of that, the fruits of my labour are manifesting, with the first couple of books showing active digital book (e-pub format) links to online book-retailing stores like Barnes and Noble (Nook Book), and Kobo.
Phew!
I thought I might do well to celebrate, just a little, by revisiting each book over the coming week or so, starting with Small Town Kid.
A background to the Small Town Kid
Migration of the Stateless
I was born in 1956 (the year the Olympic Games came to Melbourne) in Hamburg, Germany. My family were passportless, non-Communist-affiliated immigrants out of then Yugoslavia. Passportless because their ethnic background was German, rather than Slav, and because of a staunch (catholic) refusal to join the ruling Communist Party. To join the Party would, perhaps, have guaranteed better jobs, but required a renunciation of religion (as I understand it).
The family were able to obtain a passport giving them German nationality. Before leaving Yugoslavia, they had nominated Australia as a final destination because there were some family members already here (in the small rural township of Beechworth).
Who was affected? How?
The migration represented very different things for each of my parents. For my father, the chance to get a fresh start. To be man unoppressed and with some control over his own future.
Dad was 25 years old when they migrated and with him came my grandparents who were still rearing three younger children. As well, my mother, my sister and myself. So it was a two-family migration, with the expectation that they would help each other settle and grow.
For my mother, it was different story. For her, migration was about getting a life for her children. It was clearly and entirely a sacrifice that she made, for she was very close to her parents, who couyld not make the journey. There was a very real possibility that she would never see them again.
To a great extent, my mother felt alone in this adventure, and some part of her loneliness and distress never left her, and Small Town Kid, I think, reflects this sadness she carried.
All in all, the family remained in Germany for around 12 months, during which time, I was born in Hamburg. They would have happily stayed in Germany – there was work, the old country and mum’s family were only 2 European countries away, the language was manageable and so on. In the end, though, there was no choice and the move had to be made – a five day journey by airplane.
They arrived with virtually nothing in hand, and the family story tells that when the tea chest filled with crockery and such goods arrived months later, all but one plate had been smashed in transit.
Work, Work, Work
When in Beechworth – the small town that became home, work of various kinds abounded for the adults. This was the 1950s. All sorts of everything were happening. Labour was needed. Jobs, jobs, jobs.
Mum ended up working in the local lunatic asylum (Mayday Hills) as an untrained nursing staff member (with no English language skills, initially). Dad worked a number of jobs, including forestry work before ending up as a cook at te same lunatic asylum.
Both their jobs involved long-day shift work. In dad’s case, he was rosytered to work 10 hour days, but on a pattern of one day worked and one day off-duty. On his off-duty days he always had side jobs. How else to furnish a home, to build a place of your own?
Mum’s days were exhausting 13 hour shifts – two days worked and two days off-roster. With plenty of overtime.
Poetry Readings from Small Town Kid
Below are some of the readings from Small Toiwn Kid located on my YouTube Channel. I hope you enjoy them.
Smashwords Link
It should be possible to find the digital version of Small Town Kid fairly readily, now, including in the Kindle store, still. For the purpose of this re-presentation though, I’ll pop in the linl to the Smashwords store for you to check out.
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1091148
The New Asylum Revisited
A companion article on The New Asylum is now published, here.